She looked like she was standing in two plastic bags from Wally World

Posted Tuesday, October 24, 2017, at 12:00 AM

I have known about hoses all of my life. Cars, houses, trucks and tractors all need hoses to function.

When electricity was finally brought to the country we also got an electric water pump and with it a garden hose. At about the same time dad bought a Farmall F-12 tractor and later a “C” Farmall from Garvin Mitchell in Worthington. The “C” had radiator hoses and hoses for hydraulic fluid.

When I bought Huldy, my first car a 1938 Ford sedan, it had mechanical brakes. I will swear on a stack of Bibles as high as the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the Circle City that when I pushed on the pedal the car would speed up especially in a tight spot. Cars have hoses and lines to carry fluids. I have a small air compressor that uses a rubber hose to carry compressed air. Clothes washers and dishwashers have hoses. Hoses proliferate in hospitals to carry liquids, medicines and air.

There is another kind of hose; hosiery that women wear to be alluring and to keep warm. How could anything so thin be warm when compared to coats that make wearers look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy or the Michelin Man?

Nylon stockings. What a racket! I wish I had the money BW has spent on hosiery in our married life. I could pay cash for a snappy condo in ”Floriddy.” She used to hold them up with garters that doubled as tourniquets; garter belts; then a latex rubber girdle. I had to help her put it on sometimes especially in the summer when perspiration was the enemy. I jounced her up and down like ear corn in a feed sack. She put so much powder on herself that she looked like a ten-pound frying chicken all floured and ready for the skillet. Picture the Lone Ranger and Tonto pinned down by the despicable Cavendish Gang. Tonto says, “Look Kemo Sabi, Cavalry come, see dust.” Sadly it was just two cowgirls wearing latex rubber girdles with enough Johnson and Johnson baby powder inside that they puffed when they bounced in the saddle.

Then came pantyhose and “onesies” for women. One of the latest renditions of nylons today is hosiery with wide elastic bands at the top that are supposed to grip the legs and stay up. Of course, BW has some. We were between Sunday School and Church last week when BW said, “Look.” Both stockings had fallen down and she looked like she was standing in two large plastic bags from Wally World. “It is a good thing I am wearing a long skirt,” she opined as she unobtrusively struggled to pull them up. I was reminded of a lady who told us that during W.W. II when rubber was not available the elastic on her underbritches failed and they fell as she walked down the street. “What did you do?” I asked. She replied, “I just stepped out of them and walked on pretending they were not mine.”

[Larry Vandeventer. Go to my two websites – Larryvandeventer.com and wjrambler1956.com – and purchase my books. I grew up North of Calvertville and graduated from Worthington High School and Indiana State. Contact me at Goosecrick@aol.com or 317-839-7656.]